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Dear Canadian Fossil Collectors,
Some of you may have heard that the ROM is finally going to open an invertebrate gallery, something that has been sadly missing for many years. There was a recent announcement of a $5 million (Canadian I assume) donation for this project. https://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/royal-ontario-museum-receives-landmark-5-million-gift-to-establish
This is a great move on the part of the ROM.
Jean-Bernard Caron has contacted me regarding the new exhibition. We have communicated both by email and phone. It seems that they are in desperate need of "spectacular" Ontario specimen for the exhibit. They probably contacted me because of my web site and in general people are aware of my "Ontario" collection, both Arkona and Brechin. It is very unfortunate that they (ROM) have no relationship with Canadian collectors or any other collectors for that matter. Jean and I spoke about this problem at length because at this point no one is willing to donate anything. We spoke about my Brechin crinoid collection and how it is going to an American institution simply because someone at the ROM told me that there was no one at the ROM interested and I should find someone somewhere else. We also spoke of a Arkona crinoid collection I personally gave them over 30 years ago and how it is still sitting in the same boxes under a table. No one bothered to accession it. And finally we spoke of a recent find by a Canadian collector of a very rare fish from Arkona. An American wanted to work on it, had no problem with it being deposited at the ROM and even made arrangements for the ROM to contact the collector. The collector sat at his phone for weeks waiting for the ROM to call. The specimen ended up being donated to an American Institution.
I made it very clear to Jean that his problem is the historic relationship with the collecting public and more importantly the total lack of interest in working on ONTARIO projects. For being called the "Royal Ontario" all of the work is outside of Ontario. Jean has recognized this as a problem and is willing to work on repairing the relationship and maybe getting some Ontario projects going. I think that Jean is sincere in his statements and would really like a better relationship with the collecting public.
I have agreed to donate some specimens but I am not going to fill the entire "Ontario" exhibit. The purpose of this post is to encourage Canadians, and other collectors to contact Dr. Caron and to start a relationship with the museum. And of course he is looking for Canadians to make donations to the exhibit. What exactly he needs is a very open question. I personally will be visiting sometime in the new year to see exactly what is needed and go from there. Maybe you can do the same.
His contact information is below.
Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron
Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology
Department of Natural History
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6 CANADA
Tel: 416-586-5593#1
Fax: 416-586-5553
E-mail: jcaron@rom.on.ca<mailto:jcaron@rom.on.ca>

As some might have read in a previous topic, I went to visit my girlfriend in Finland.
Unfortunatly Finland must be one of the worst places to find fossils in the world, I did manage to find some quartz vains and a few pieces that may or may not be amber (have to do the hot needle test on them first)
Even urban fossil hunting is near impossible as pretty much all buildings are made from the fossil-lacking stones that can be found in Finland.
The only urban fossils I found was in the Burger King in the Helsinki Central Station, the floor was littered with orthocones there.
But Finland really isn't a good place to hunt fossils.
But one thing that definitly is a worth a visit is the Finnish Museum of Natural History!
It isn't a really big museum, the collection isn't that big, but the way it is presented is very awesome!
One of the few musea that nails being modern and educative at the same time without overdoing it.
Especially the Taxidermy diorama's were done amazingly.
But I will ofcourse start this topic with what I think will interest you guys the most, the Paleontology part of the museum.
A mural with Pikaia, Opabinia & Hallucigenia models
Trilobites, most of which were found in Aland (Finland), Gotland (Sweden) and other neighboring countries of Finland
Trilobites, most of which were found in Aland (Finland), Gotland (Sweden) and other neighboring countries of Finland
Orthocone models
Graptolites
Eurypterid found in Saarermaa in Estonia (Silurian age)
Eurypterid model
Giant orthocone model

Out of curiosity, is it a practice for people to contact museums about fossils that can't be/can't quite be identified? I was just thinking about how many new unknown species must be just sitting around in individual's collections. They find new species all the time that are sitting in the museums collection, so imagine how many are of things that no museum has ever even taken a cursory look at. I don't mean like sending pictures of every vertebrae you can't pin to a specific species, even though that's more than enough in some cases, but at least with the less usual stuff, even though I'm sure there are plenty of individual teeth or single vertebrae of undiscovered species in individual collections. I saw an amazing full Devonian "shark" for sale, and that's what got me thinking. It would be nice if it were realistically possible to let museums just browse through collections, just in case. I know that once a fossil is out of context it loses significant useful information, but there'd still be potentially lots to gain from even those.

Founded in 1818 and housing over 20 million items, the National Museum of Brazil caught fire today and may be a total loss. Does anyone know specifics about their paleontology collections? I imagine the mineral collections included priceless specimens...
http://news.trust.org//item/20180903001032-p13t9/

Hi, Here i am in sunny, mostly, Bournemouth UK.
I hate to say it but I am doing the tourist thing this week. Please somebody save me and take me Barton. .
Just round the Corner from the hotel there is a small museum packed with fossils and some minerals on the lower floor. Here is the url http://bnss.org.uk.
Wonderful volunteer showed me the collections and besides what is in the cabinets there are drawers filled to the brim. As it is a charity and only open to the public on Tuesday's, more often over the holidays, donations are very welcome.
I have photos to share but need to get home first to download. Loads of Barton stuff.
They have other galleries such as Archaeology, Egyptology, real mummy in a sarcophagus. Stuffed animals etc.
Watch this space.

This past Wednesday I got to meet Trix in person, and is she beautiful or what?? I immediately fell in love with her. I could have stayed and looked at her for hours, but it was crowded and sweltering in the building (all buildings actually) so we didn’t stay too long. We also toured the Museum of paleontology, but by the time I made it to the third floor (husband and child chose to sit that floor out) I practically ran through it, it was just too hot to stroll around leisurely anymore. So the photos aren’t my best, but it’s what you get.

when i was in miami during the summer i went to this mall in palm beach where they had this museum that has dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals but they are some fossils in there that i dont know what they are so i wanted them to have IDed.

So, it's me again with another Museum. This time from Berlin / Germany, visited on 14 August 2018
And Berlin is all about the BIG guys.
Let's go:
Giraffatitan brancai (it's still labeled in the museum as Brachiosaurus brancai)
The tallest mouted skelleton in the world (43 ft 6 in)
Diplodocus carnegii
Dicraeosaurus hansemanni
Kentrosaurus aethiopicus
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Mounted replika skull. The real skull is in a seperate showcase, because it's too heavy (like with Sue)
Elaphrosaurus bambergi
Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki
Allosaurus fragilis
I think that is a very interesting idea with the real head. It gives a better understanding what these creatures looked like.
Archaeopteryx lithographica (yes thats the real one right there)
Dracorex hogwartsia
Rhamphorhynchus muensteri
Anyone needs a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth? You can buy one at the museum for 2700 $
And lots of fish

So, since I live in Munich I thought it would be a nice idea to show you our little, but great museum here in Munich
I think this Museum is mostly known for the Holotyp of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus that got destroyed in WW II.
This is the Museum today:
Back then the Museum was at a different location in Munich. Here you see a picture of that building back then after the bombing in 1944.
As you can see, the building itself didn't collapse, but basically everything inside.
They even show the famous Holotyp of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.
I had the pleasure to speak today with one of the staff members about this. After the war members of the museum tried to dig up anything they could find, but unfortunately no part of the Holotyp of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus could be recovered. At lest they tried to find it, but it's lost forever.
Would the Holotyp survived the war, I think this would be the highlight of the museum.
But still, there are some fine pieces in the museum
Bradysaurus seeleyi
Plateosaurus engelhardti
Prestosuchus chiniquensis
Monoclonius nasicornus
Triceratops indet. (they name it just Triceratops, no species)
Placodus gigas
Allosaurus fragilis
Megaloceros giganteus
Ursus spelaeus
Dinomis ingens
Smilodon californicus
Trichechus manatus
Gomphotherium angustidens
Thats for the specis I got the names. And now the rest: Enjoy (some names you can find in the pictures)

Teylers, Museum of Wonder
The oldest museum in the Netherlands 1784 and is located in Haarlem.
The collection contains early laboratory equipment , fossils and paintings.
Fossil Rooms
This wing of the museum was opened in 1885. Many of the fossil in this collection was used for Darwin’s the Origin of Species.
Giant Salamander, when this fossil was found only the head and spine were visible, and was thought to be part of a human skeleton. Playing into the belief that it was proof of when fossils were regarded as evidence of the Biblical Flood. In 1811 however French scientist Cuvier chiselled a layer of stone away and revealed the front legs of a giant salamander.
more beauties
Incredible

I recently took a trip to the Iron Hill Museum in Newark, Delaware. (Which has amazing displays by the way. Its small, but fascinating.) There, I bought a small bag of about 10 fossils. I knew what most of them were, but there are a few I am unsure of what they actually are. I was wondering if anyone on the Forum could help me. All I know is that all of the Fossils were found in either Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania. Unfortunately I will have to upload these each in separate posts as it won't let me upload more than 3.95 MB. (Yell at me all you want if you have found a way around it.)
1. This one I was told that this is some kind of bone fragment.
2. This is also another bone fragment.
3. I think this is a bone fragment.
4. I know this is a vertebra but I am not sure what kind. I am pretty sure it is marine.
5. This is some kind of tooth.
6. No idea.

Recently went in a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago where they had two new exhibits showcased: Antarctica dinosaurs and their new dinosaur, Patagotitan.
Here are some pictures of the insanely massive sauropod nicknamed Maximo. This skeleton is just a replica, however they do have a few authentic bones on display:
In the pictures you may also notice a life-size Quetzolacanthus hovering in the corner.

Zdravo!
I took a little trip to the my hometown's Museum.It's pretty small Museum but it has a lot of things to offer: Things from the Celtic,Roman,Vinča and Serbian Culture. But above all i love the most fossils that were found here in Paraćin...U can see here Bones from Mammoths,Cave Bears,mollars from a Wooly rhino ...etc...But the most fascinating thing is the skull of a Diplocynodon moraviensis,the Aligatoroid that was found in Popovac . Hope you guys enjoy

Visited the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake this past week. They have a good display of Dinosaurs and Fossils.
The first thing you see when you enter is the Lab. There are workers prepping fossils and they have some displays to see. They also have a monitor to show what they are seeing under the microscopes.

I took a trip last week to one of my favorite museums in the world, New York’s American Museum of Natural History. This museum is a must for any fossil lover when in New York. My pictures do it no justice and most of my pictures didnt come out because of glare from the sun on the glass displays, but here is a quick look of what is inside.
PS- if you go onto google maps and use the street view function you can take a virtual tour of most of the museum. The fossils are on the fourth floor.

While on my road trip to Utah I stopped at the Museum in Fruita Colorado. This place is just off I-70 on the western side of the state.
It is a small museum dedicated to Dinosaurs. They have a lot of displays that include those found locally. Just south of the museum is a place called Dinosaur Hill.
This place has produced a lot of finds including a large Apatosaurus a 70 foot long 30 ton Dinosaur found by Elmer Riggs in 1900.
Below are plaques commemorating his discovery.

I am currently spending some time in Salt Lake doing some snow skiing. Not much snow sad to say. I made a trip The Museum of Ancient Life in Lehi Utah and thought I would share some of the specimens that they have on display. It's a nice play with about 60 Dinosaurs on display. They also have a lot of small fossils from the Utah and surrounding states. The nice thing is that a lot are hands on displays and are up close and personal. You really get a good representation of their size.
First thing one sees upon entering.
You are encouraged to touch.
Shot of the guys working on a current project.
Outside the lab is a jacketed specimen. And yes you can touch.

This past weekend was the 50th annual Rutgers Geology Museum open house, which was an excellent opportunity to attend guest lectures by professionals and also a chance see the museum's collection. The event was very well attended, and in between lectures (the lecture by Dr. Isaiah Nengo on his work with Nyanzapithecus alesi was excellent) seeing the museum was a hurried, crowded affair. The museum building is a tall 19th century structure with many large tall windows, so on this sunny Saturday sun glare on the glass cases was unfortunately a real and unavoidable problem. Nevertheless, I made an effort to get some photos of the museum to share with TFF.
The Mastodon is a Salem County NJ find. Particularly exciting for me as a huge fan of Phytosaurs was seeing their specimen of Rutiodon manhattenensis, which despite its specific name was found on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. Yet another example of New York stealing New Jersey's credit! Hidden in a corner (it was packed in there, things crammed into corners to make room for tables) was a skull of Mosasaurus "maxmimus" which I'd have loved to known more about since it was apparently a New Jersey find. Alas, no more info than that. Next to it was a cast of the original find Mosasaurus hoffmanii from the Netherlands, which was neat to see in real scale.

Hi TFF
Last year I spent a hole afternoon with one of the curators of the Natural History Museum London. I had a behind the scenes look at the Museum's fascinating zoology collection preserved in spirit.
We explore some of the Darwin Centre’s 27 kilometres of shelves,encounter numerous treasures hidden among the 22 million animal specimens housed here.
with the highlight been a 8.62-metre-long giant squid court in the Falklands Islands and a very good look at some of the specimens collected by Charles Darwin himself . I did get to hold Darwin's now pickled pet octopus ,
First 3 photos are the Giant Squid
3,4,5 specimens specimens by Darwin
the rest is assorted pickles jars
thank you all for looking
cheers Bobby

Hi Everyone,
I am trying to figure out my summer plans right now. I'm going to be going into my senior year of highschool. I'm hoping to spend the summer or part of the summer focusing on fossils and paleontology. My dream would be to find a program where housing is provided that i could be out in the field collecting fossils. In my dream world, fossils to study and keep for myself, but again, realistically, just any work out in the field collecting and searching for fossils. I am especially interested in fossils from the miocene period but I would be perfectly content to go collecting and maybe even study fossils from other periods. I'm not terribly interested in plant fossils, but everything from ammonites to trilobites to shark teeth to mammals is of great interest to me. I live in Massachusetts so it would most likely have to be out of state in which case it would need to be something that could provide housing. Doesn't have to be an official job with a specific museum or anything. Maybe a job or internship at a fossil quarry or something like that. Maybe working with a museum to go on collection trips. That kind of thing would be amazing. Any advice or leads would be a tremendous help. Thanks in advance!